A good case in point of the dream of reason producing nightmare.
Jacob Segal
>Yes, actually there are a few real philosophers who take Rand seriously, I
>was exaggerating: in addition to Hospers, there is Eric Mack, Douglas Den
>Uyl (sp?), and the Bowling Green libetertians; Nozick wrote a piece on
>Rand as a philosopher. Moreover my friend Chris Sciabbara, a libertarian
>student of Betell Ollman, is a actually a Rand scholar, and Chris is very
>smart. I still think Rand is a crackpot. I guess if what you say about
>Hospers is true, I mean about Tonga, he was a practical crackpot as well.
>He was a fine philosopher, though. --jks
>
>In a message dated Tue, 9 May 2000 12:37:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Sam
>Pawlett <rsp at uniserve.com> writes:
>
><<
>
>JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
>>
> Real philosophers (I used to be one, that is whatI did for a
>> living before I was a lawyer) mainly do not take her work seriously. Her
>> following is a scary cult. And Greenspan is part of it.
>>
> Except for John Hospers, a very good philosopher. I'm told that he and
>Rand were good friends and she got a lot of ideas from him. In his
>serious work though, you would be surprised to find that he is a
>political crackpot. Apart from his tome *Libertarianism* he drops few
>hints that he is in with Rand. He had a plan with Us real estate
>developer Michael Oliver (who wanted to create the ultimate offshore
>financial operation) to set up a libertarian paradise in one of the
>Tonga islands. The local people showed up with spears and weapons and
>turned them away violently.
>
>If you want to know what Greenspan thinks check out his essays in the
>Rand edited collection *Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal* (yes that's
>right, capitalism is a moral ideal and we haven't had the real thing yet
>but we're gonna get it and the Randians don't care how many people die.)
>One of G's papers is a defence of the gold standard. The kind of ranting
>you'd find in the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight or something.
>
>Sam Pawlett
> >>